Here’s an update to a story familiar to Radio World readers from John Bisset’s Workbench column.
Public Radio Delmarva, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, has had a continuing problem with birds disrupting its broadcasts, which is of even more concern as the organization gets ready for its spring fundraiser.
Ospreys regularly nest on a particular tower serving WSCL(FM) and WSDL(FM), located between Ocean City and the Chesapeake Bay. The studios are on the campus of licensee Salisbury University. Bisset wrote about the case in RW, and readers offered several suggestions in reply (see links below).
WSCL is a Class B on 89.5 MHz licensed to Salisbury, while WSDL is a Class B1, on 90.7 MHz, licensed to Ocean City, Md., according to the FCC’s database.
The birds and their young now are practicing flight from the STL antenna, disrupting transmissions so much that the station is receiving a lot of calls from complaining listeners, General Manager Gerry Weston tells the Delmarva Daily Times.
Weston and station management asked a tower climber to visit the site and offer possible solutions; the article describes their latest attempts to solve the problem by adding a rod to the rig.
“We don’t want to harm the birds, but we want to prevent them from perching on the rod,” Weston told the paper.
Related:
“Osprey-Fade Creates STL Headaches” (Nov. 24, 2009)
“Give Those Birds the Brush-Off” (Jan. 8, 2010)
“Waste Not, Tangle Not” (Feb. 10, 2010)
